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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

KOREAN MUSIC: John Park's KNOCKing at your heart's door

존박“노크” (Knock)

John Park

(Picture courtesy of Music Farm Korea)

John Park or Park Seonggyu1
(존박 or 박성규) is a Korean-American
singer. He was a semifinalist (and voted off on March 4, 2010) in the ninth
season of Fox’s “American Idol” and the same year he entered Mnet’s “Superstar K
Season Two” or “Superstar K-2.” He came
in second place in the competition aired live on October 22, 2010. My then-71-year-old mom was so heartbroken for she had rooted for
him to win the “Superstar K” title. She
had repeated his songs on her MP3 player for quite a while ever since. After runner-up finish, Park reportedly
received management offers from various agencies including Bae Yong Joon’s2 KeyEastand ended up signing with Music Farm Korea3 on March 30, 2011.

1. Or Park Seong Gyu or Park
Sunggyu or Park Sung Gyu

2. Or Bae Yongjoon or Bae Yong-joon.

3. Music Farm Korea is
known to have a pool of very talented musicians with sophisticated, in-depth understanding
of music and, of course, life such as 이적(Lee Jeok or
Lee Juk), 김동률 (Kim Dongryul or Kimg
Dong-ryul or Kim Dong-ryool), 체리필터(Cherry
Filter), 조원선(Joe
Wonsun or Cho Weonseon or Cho Wonseon), 이상순(Lee
Sangsoon or Lee Sangsun), 정순용(Jung Soonyong or Jung Sunyong or Jeong Sunyong)

The moment he came on the public scene, Park was added to the list of Eomchina (엄친아, “Mom’s friend’s son”)4
as he was considered the full package; he’s got the look, the talent, and was
an Econ student at Northwestern University.
But despite all the media frenzy, he had maintained a relatively low profile for a very long time, compared to his fellow “Superstar K-2” contestants
such as Huh Gak (허각, winner) or Jang Jae In (장재인, third place), until his debut album, “Knock,” was released at last on February 22, 2012. He just had made brief appearances on MBC’s “Radio
Star” together with Lee Juk and Jung Jae Hyung or Jeong Jaehyeong5 (August 24, 2011) and KBS’s “Sketchbook”
(November, 2011) in the meantime.

4.Eomchina is a slang term that originated as the acronym of Eomma Chingu
Adeul which translates to “Mom’s
friend’s son.” Korean moms push and
nag their children by mentioning her friend’s perfect son. However, a person that is so perfect is
unreal in real life, hence, it’s basically the ideal images reflected and created
by Korean moms. Its female equivalent
is Eomchinddal (엄친딸, from Eomma Chingu Ddal, “Mom’s friend’s daughter”).

In his recent interview with Sports DongA
(02/24/2012), John Park said, “I thought I needed a cooling off period until
the media frenzy would die down because I wanted to be properly valued only as
a musician.” He said he had signed up
with Music Farm Korea because they had him convinced that his career as
a musician, not as an entertainer or a pop star, would pick up and flourish
there. “I knew there was room to improve
and I knew I still needed to learn how to convey sentiments that are uniquely
Korean and to bring out the subtle nuances in lyrics (since I was born in the U.S.),”
he added. This explains why he didn’t try
to express himself through music this time while preparing his debut album; his
primary goal was to sing the songs that tap a quintessentially Korean
sentiment.

Park said, “I wanted my music
to sound fresh and clean as if I was starting over as a musician,” and promised
that his second album would show his true colors. He also revealed plans to write songs for the
next album. “Kim Dongryul wrote
three tracks on my album. I was so happy
working with great musicians like Kim and Lee Juck. Just like them, I really want to remain committed to the
music as long as I possibly can and want to be true to my own spirit and my own music,” he added. (FYI,
Park is known to also admire Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Gavin DeGraw, Marc
Broussard and Jamie Cullum, and like Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Joss Stone,
Christina Aguilera, & Theresa Andersson.)

John Park

(Picture
courtesy of Music Farm Korea)

All five tracks on his debut album, “Falling”(폴링), “Why Is It”(왜그럴까), “This Ain’t It”(이게아닌데), “Good Day”(굿데이), and “That Song”(그노래), became instant hits upon release, all ranked in the
Top 10 on Naver’s real-time chart; Park with “Falling” was neck and neck with
Big Bang with “BLUE” for first place on various digital download charts on
February 22, 2012. He dominated Hanteo’s
real-time daily album sales chart on February 26 as about 13,000 launch copies
were sold out in a single day. A
representative of Music Farm Korea said it had already gotten plenty of
reorders from retailers. The album was
produced by Kim Dongryul and the title song, “Falling,” was composed by Mama’s
Gun lead singer/composer/producer Andy Platts with lyrics written by John Park.
Park reportedly produced the song
himself. He made his official debut on
Mnet’s “M! Countdown” stage on February 23, 2012.

[MV] John
Park: Falling (2012) (Click on the title on screen or double-click it